Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton came close to having an awkward airport encounter when their campaign planes parked in sight on one another in Cleveland

View from the Clinton camp: This was the view from Clinton's press bus as it loaded in Cleveland - her rival Donald Trump's personal Boeing 757

Also visible: Mike Pence's campaign plane, a smaller Boeing 737 was also parked on the tarmac at the lakeside city

Too close for comfort: The Clinton campaign plane was carefully parked on the other side of the tarmac to avoid awkward encounters - or being in the same photograph as Trump and Pence's. Her plane is reflected in the window of the press bus

First outing: The Cleveland landing was the debut for Clinton's new campaign plane, which took off from Westchester, New York, earlier

Meeting: Clinton used her new campaign plane to go back and meet the traveling press corps, which was a first

The presence of both campaigns in the same city underlines the importance of Ohio as a swing state. The most recent poll of the state, conducted by Emerson, has the candidates tied.

Labor Day is the traditional start of the most intensive campaigning.

It was Trump who landed first, along with his running mate Mike Pence, whose campaign plane - a Boeing 737 - was parked close to the Republican candidate's.

They headed for an engagement at an American Legion branch.

About two hours later, Clinton's new campaign 737, dubbed Hill Force One, made its first landing for a campaign stop, having left Westchester, New York, less than an hour before.

Clinton is also to campaign in Illinois and then move on later in the week to Florida, another crucial swing state.

Trump went to an American Legion to meet union members in a round-table discussion, and warned that America's manufacturing jobs are 'going to hell.'

The Republican presidential nominee blamed the Obama administration for allowing companies to move jobs to Mexico. He also lashed out at the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership as 'a catastrophe.'

Trump also highlighted President Barack Obama's reception in China at the Group of 20 summit this weekend as a sign that he is not respected. He noted that Obama couldn't use his traditional staircase to exit Air Force One when he arrived in China over the weekend, instead, using something Trump described as 'a metal staircase in the back of the plane.'

Blue-collar push: Donald Trump and Mike Pence met union members at a Cleveland American Legion branch

Sing state: Both Clinton and Trump were meeting organized labor, with Trump heading to this American Legion branch for a round table with union members. Ohio is a key battleground

In the sights: Trump is making his Labor Day trip to Cleveland as part of a bid to further erode Clinton's lead in the polls, which has faltered in recent weeks

'If that were me,' Trump said, 'I'd say, 'You know what folks, I respect you a lot, let's close the doors, let's get out of here.''

Trump was also expected to campaign at a fair in Youngstown, Ohio, in a nod to the state's role as a make-or-break proving ground for Republican presidential candidates. No Republican has won the White House without winning Ohio and Trump is trying to overcome some splintering in the state party, which was supportive of Ohio Gov. John Kasich during the presidential primary.

While Labor Day has traditionally been the kickoff to the fall campaign, both Clinton and Trump have been locked in an intense back-and-forth throughout the summer.

Clinton has questioned Trump's temperament and preparation to serve as commander in chief while seeking to connect the reality television star to the extreme 'alt-right' movement within the Republican Party.

Trump visited a predominantly black church in Detroit on Saturday in a rare appearance with minority voters, aiming to counter Clinton's argument to moderate and suburban voters that he has allowed a racist fringe to influence his candidacy.

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The start of full-fledged campaigning opens a pivotal month, culminating in the first presidential debate on Sept. 26 at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York. Polls show Trump trailing Clinton in a series of must-win battleground states, meaning the debates could be his best chance at reorienting the race.

Clinton will have millions of dollars at her disposal this fall to air television advertising and power a sophisticated get-out-the vote operation in key states.

The former secretary of state raised a combined $143 million in August for her campaign, the Democratic National Committee and state parties — her best month yet. She began September with more than $68 million in her campaign's bank account to use against Trump, who has not yet released initial fundraising totals for August.

Clinton was to attend the Labor Day festival in Cleveland alongside running mate Tim Kaine and AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. Later in the day, she was joining with labor leaders in the Quad Cities community of Hampton, Illinois, across the Mississippi River from Iowa, where she is locked in a tight contest with Trump.

Trump pulled into an effective tie with Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, in to the latest Reuters/Ipsos national tracking poll, published over the weekend.

He has managed to erase a substantial deficit as he consolidates support among his party's likely voters with just two months to go before election day.

The poll showed 40 per cent of likely voters supporting Trump and 39 per cent backing Clinton for the week of August 26 to September 1.

The crossing lines at the right edge of this graph from the Reuters/Ipsos poll shows that Donald Trump has caught Hillary Clinton

Clinton's support has dropped steadily in the weekly tracking poll since August 25, eliminating what had been a eight-point lead for her.

Trump's gains came as Republican support for their party's candidate jumped by six percentage points over the past two weeks, to about 78 percent.

That is still below the 85 per cent support Republican nominee Mitt Romney enjoyed in the summer of 2012, but the improvement helps explain Trump's rise in the poll.

Polling aggregators, which calculate averages of major polls, have shown that Clinton's lead has been shrinking for the past few weeks.

Those averages put her advantage over Trump at between three and six percentage points. Some of the more recent individual polls, however, have the race even tighter.

Voters don't elect the American president directly, of course, but through the Electoral College, an assembly representing each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia based on the number of legislators they have in Congress.

That makes the states of Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania critical battlegrounds, because they have a large number of electoral college votes and electorates which could go either way.

As of last Friday, the separate Reuters/Ipsos States of the Nation polling project estimated Clinton was on track to win the Electoral College, by about 332 votes to 206. Those numbers were scheduled to be updated later Friday.

In recent weeks, Clinton has come under renewed criticism over her handling of classified information while serving as U.S. secretary of state, and her family's charitable foundation has come under fresh scrutiny for the donations it accepted while Clinton served in the Obama administration. Meanwhile, Clinton hasn't been campaigning as actively as Trump.

Trump, meanwhile, has reshuffled his campaign leadership and sought to broaden his appeal to moderate Republicans and minorities.

He recently suggested that he would be a better president than Clinton for African Americans, and has taken steps, including a meeting this week with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, to reach out to immigrants. It remains to be seen whether those efforts will click.